Impunity remains entrenched in Nepal as political parties continue to resist amending transitional justice laws, prioritising reconciliation and monetary compensation over truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, according to the Amnesty International.

“No step has been taken towards amending the Act of Commission of the Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons and Truth and Reconciliation as directed by the Supreme Court in 2015,” the Amnesty has noted in the global report on the state of world’s human rights 2017/18 launched on Thursday. The report incorporates one year of human rights situation from 159 countries.

While pointing out acute shortage of resources, the international human rights watchdog has questioned the capacity of the two transitional justice bodies to deliver truth, justice and reparation to the thousands of war-era victims. Though the two commissions have jointly collected over 63,000 complaints, they have not been able to investigate into a single case so far.

The lack of investigation into the killings of hundreds of demonstrators by security forces since 1990 in different parts of the country, including in the Tarai, has been highlighted as another case of impunity.

The Amnesty has also raised issues related to the government’s apathy towards migrant workers. “The government failed to deliver effective protection for migrant workers and end the culture of impunity for unlawful and criminal recruitment practices,” reads the report. It says that the migrant workers were systematically subjected to unlawful and criminal conduct by recruitment business and agents. It also claims that some recruiters were directly involved in labour trafficking which is punishable under Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act.

“Migrants workers received substantially less in compensation than the amount they claimed for financial harms suffered. Recruitment business continued to use their political influence to prevent investigation, prosecution and redress for their routine abuse and exploitations of migrants,” the report adds.

The delay in the reconstruction of homes destroyed by the earthquake and the government’s failure in providing housing to those who lost their houses in the flood in the Tarai have deprived thousands of people from their rights to shelter, according to the report. Nearly 70 percent of the people who lost their home in the earthquake are still living in temporary shelters.